This post is going to talk about something I've noticed and only come to the realization of fully as of last year. When you work a dead-end retail job, you're going to encounter every walk of life there is. And boy, are they something to observe. But as the years of work pile up, I see things for what they are and I see what these people really represent.
The title of this post is Adult only in name. Why do I say that? Well, I consider that even as an adult, I don't really feel like one. But I look at other adults like me and I see that maybe I am one, because the things I've heard and seen are beyond what I can comprehend.
First, working the jobs I've had, I've had to clean up after other people. It's not a pleasant feeling and I've had my fill of it. But I have to ask a question: What's wrong with just putting things in a trashcan? Are you that inept or lazy that you can't just do a simple thing like that? If this is how you treat other people's property, I don't wanna see your house. And why do you take things that you don't want and put them in places where they don't belong? Fun fact: Frozen foods and refrigerated foods are not one in the same. If you don't like something, fine. But don't leave the sample cup on the shelf half-eaten with whatever parasites linger in your mouth. That irritates me more than anything seeing food wasted.
Never mind the children that put cold items on the shelves.
Why do I call them children? Because only children act that way. Only children would not know where to put things at. And only children react to being called out for it with a lie or a tantrum. A lot of those occur. Another example, not one of my own but one I saw many a time on the internet: When a comedian does a show, you may see a heckler or two making a commotion for various reasons. Regardless of what those reasons are, you have a supposed adult making a disturbance for everyone else just because the performer told a joke they didn't like or they feel like commentating on everything the person with the mike says.
And most of time, said disturbances are under the influence and I'll get to that soon in another example. But notice that when you see belligerent people like this they usually had a drink or two in their systems and act out? It's always funny to see a comedian handle them they way they do. Even better is when a heckler isn't malicious but just rambling on and both parties go back and forth playfully. The ones who aren't make it all the better when the comedian is witty enough to make an ass out of them without them knowing it. Pure bliss.
Some people can't go out in public without causing a ruckus. When I was younger and went wherever to whoever's house, my mother always told me "Yes, No, Thank You, No Thank You." To my annoyance. And I thank her every day for it. Same with my father when he took me to the store and told me to say thank you when I got my candy. It's amazing what manners can do for a person, and anyone who comes to a live show of any sort and disrupts the performance based on their own grievances and lack of self-respect really needs to be disciplined. These are also the types that can't handle the concept of an opinion. Online, you can have a person berate and harass you just because you don't agree with X or stand by Y. Internet has given these children a place to dump their mental garbage and it shocks them when someone chooses to keep a clean house and be respectful of another person's belongings. Sometimes, these are actual children. What does that tell you about the current generation and the generation to come.
But alas, they are adults and no one can tell them anything. I'm not saying this in the sense of I know it all, I mean in the sense of common, if that made any sense. No one should have to tell you to keep your voice down when you're in a library or to not talk during a live show of any sort. Only children do that, and even in that scenario they aren't being raised correctly. The legal children of society are now raising more children who will grow up physically but not mentally. Now, going back to my statement with alcohol, Something that needs to be told to every child in grade school and even college,
Doing adult things does not make you an adult.
Take some time to process that. When I was still a child in school, I did want a girlfriend, but that was the result of my developing hormones, which I had no control over. I still watched cartoons and played video games, which is normal. I even watched PBS up until fifth grade, which is also normal. I'd wager some of these 'adults' could have used a few more years with the channel. When Arthur and Dragon Tales provide a more fulfilling experience than the cartoons they showed on the other channels, you know something went wrong. Around middle school is where all the so-called children tried to be adults, and it showed. Skipping school, fighting, talking about stuff that children shouldn't watch. I'm guilty of this, watching South Park and not knowing what a hummer or a clitoris is.
On the other hand, I was weened off The Simpsons.
Anyway, middle school is where you start to see these teenage pregnancies and so on and in my school, one of the most notorious girls had vodka in a plastic bottle and was never seen again. Another girl gave a male student oral sex in eighth grade and she had a massive ass to boot. I was unconcerned about those events then, but now it resonates with me more; these are likely the adults who never grew up mentally. Puberty is a sign of physical development; it says nothing about your mental development. Who the hell knows what happened to the girl with the alcohol or the girl who was easy and loose? Never mind high school and senior year. These same girls were watching the music videos on BET and while the girls there are good for a session or two with Mylef Tahan, that's all it amounted to for me. Once I got that out the way, back to being a kid.
But some of these people, I may be hard on without knowing their situation fully. Some of these children either live alone by emancipation or they have to raise other children while being children themselves or even having their ailing grandparents raise them, forcing their development at a time when they aren't ready for it. I won't fault anyone that was put in that situation, but I can say that said circumstances could have been avoided by the previous generation.
In general, adult children tend to be the ones who start arguments over small stuff or become angry over a minor error at a retail store. Things aren't going to go your way every time, but starting a fight over a fixable error does nothing but put you in a deeper hole. Now you're in court because of the person you assaulted taking legal measures and now a blemish on your record lingers forever. As a teen, I stayed out of trouble and if that made me a 'punk' or a 'bitch ass nigga', so be it. I'm not the one in jail or on probation. It's okay to defend yourself, but only if you have to. If someone attacks you, that's a justifiable reason to attack, consequences be damned.
But isn't it funny how even if you're in the right, you still get screwed over? Remember that most schools never punished the bully ('memba this too?), and in some cases even supported him? That bully never had to face any consequences growing up, hence his lack of mental development and learning the process of right and wrong. As an adult, what does that mean for the rest of society? This underdeveloped person feels he can do what he pleases and not face the consequences. Sometimes, he may just get his just desserts for the first time, other times he finds a means to get off scott free.
But back to the original subject, people like the bully I mentioned linger in society by the dozen. You can also add in the spoiled children who never worked a day in their lives in this article too. I probably hate those types more than the people I interact with daily. They aren't always necessarily well-off, mind you. These were the kids who were on reality television whining about not getting a red Acura or Mercedes or the kids today who cried about not getting a Galaxy 7 phone, going back to my previous statement.
But I've encountered people whose parents are actually worse than they are. One co-worker way back mentioned to me about how his mother talks about Africa having starving children and to eat everything on your plate when he was growing up. Now, this same parent is guilty of doing the same thing he did as a child. Even better is he cooks his own food, his mother asks for some, she takes two bites and leaves it in the refrigerator, but I see that with my current set of co-workers to this day. Why buy a $18 meal and only eat half of it? You can tell they're well-off that they can do such an act. I repeat; wasting food is my biggest pet peeve. An adult picking at a meal like a child pisses me off. And you wonder why you have diabetes before thirty.
To end this rant, I wasn't dirt poor, but I wasn't rich either. But I can say that encountering these adult children matured me more than whatever my mom or dad taught me. Seeing the teenage parents and Maury Povich making money off their ignorance scared me straight, seeing adults act so recklessly with seven kids and no job really resonated with me when I moved to the south and seeing them now reminded me that maybe I'm not in such a bad position. It really could be worse.
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| MUCH worse. |
An alternative title for this piece could be, what defines an adult?
